Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree

Friend of Higher Education Award

Presented by IUP and the local chapter of the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Professors to Vincent Hughes, who represents the 7th legislative district in the Pennsylvania Senate

IUP Legislative Fellow

Jake Wheatley, Jr., who represents Pennsylvania’s 19th legislative district in the House of Representatives, selected as the tenth IUP Legislative Fellow, in a program begun in 1998 by IUP-APSCUF

ROTC Ranger Challenge

Won by IUP’s ROTC Warrior Battalion, which took first place for the first time in the competition among twenty schools from Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey

Brigade Cadet of the Year

IUP student Joshua LaFleur, selected for the Lt. Neil Santoriello Leadership Award, given annually at the competition to one cadet who demonstrates exemplary leadership qualities in training for and competing at the Ranger Challenge

Accolades

Best 290 Business Schools, 2008 Edition

For the fourth straight year selected for inclusion IUP’s Eberly College of Business and Information Technology from some 1,600 business schools across the nation

Slowboy Racing, founded in 2002 in cooperation with IUP’s Small Business Development Center and located in part at the Small Business Incubator in Robertshaw

Mentors

Among the Smart Leaders

The November 2007 edition of Smart Business Pittsburgh carried an interview with IUP President Tony Atwater as part of its “Smart Leaders” series. “In addition to managing a $209 million budget and 1,873 employees,” the magazine wrote, “the leader [in this case Atwater] constantly re-evaluates the market and his own business practices, seeking innovative ways to better serve his organization and constituents.” Listening, Atwater said, “goes beyond strictly having ears. You have to be intentional and strategic about gaining information that will be useful to you in terms of effecting positive change. In the final analysis, good leaders effect positive change in a graceful fashion that lifts the institution or organization.”

Privacy, Problems, Process

In an article last fall on the interpretation of federal privacy laws, the Washington Post quoted former IUP President Lawrence K. Pettit, who, it said, “recently completed a report on the shootings [at Virginia Tech] for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities that summarizes the panel findings. He is advising university presidents to work with state attorneys general to better understand the intersection of federal education and medical privacy laws, as well as state restrictions.” According to Pettit, “It’s become pretty complicated, and I think it’s incredibly important that we come to some understanding on how to interpret these laws, and how student affairs officials and faculty and others can proceed when they suspect there’s a problem. What we are trying to do is get all the value we can out of hindsight.”

Be the Change

Valarie McDowell Trimarchi ’87, M’91, campus dean of IUP at Punxsutawney, was honored at the Pennsylvania Governor’s Conference for Women in Philadelphia in November. She was one of five finalists for the Be the Change award selected from among 150 nominations. Cosponsored by Canyon Ranch, the award, according to conference officials, was “presented to a Pennsylvania woman who personifies compassion for her community and commitment to improving the everyday lives of those around her.”

Stellar Year for TRIO Programs

In addition to a four-year renewal for IUP’s Ronald E. McNair Post Baccalaureate Achievement Program, the university has received a $250,000 Upward Bound Math and Science grant through the U.S. Department of Education. There is potential for $125,000 in continued funding for this grant over the next five years. What was formerly the IUP McNair Office has now become the IUP TRIO Programs. Faculty members Calvin Masilela and Hilary Staples ’98, M’02 are program director and assistant director, respectively.

Grant Update

In addition to Beverly Chiarulli of the Anthropology Department, principal investigators on an NSF grant described in the Mentors section of the Fall IUP Magazine are R. Scott Moore (History), Francis Allard (Anthropology), John Benhart (Geography), and Jonathan Lewis (Geoscience). Sarah Neusius and Victor Garcia (both from Anthropology) are senior researchers. Garcia has also received a grant from the National Institute of Drug Abuse, an agency of the National Institutes of Health, to study substance abuse among migrant farm workers in Pennsylvania. In addition, IUP’s Archaeological Services, which Chiarulli directs, has entered into its fourth agreement with the Cultural Resource Group of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Design to provide cultural resource expertise for the next five years.

Nuclear Proliferation

Within recent months, Gawdat Bahgat, director of IUP’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies, has given telephone interviews to the Jerusalem Post on nuclear proliferation in the Middle East and to El-Mercurio, a Chilean newspaper. His new book, Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East, was published by the University Press of Florida last October.

Honor Society Honor

Yaw Asamoah, dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, has been elected vice president of the northeast region of the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, the nation’s oldest, largest, and most selective all-discipline honor society.